5:11-15 - "All our persuading of men, then, is with this solemn fear of God in our minds. What we are is utterly plain to God - and I hope to your consciences as well. (No, we are not recommending ourselves to you again, but we can give you grounds for legitimate pride in us - if that is what you need to meet those who are so proud of the outward rather than the inward qualification). If we have been "mad" it was for God's glory; if we are perfectly sane it is for your benefit. At any rate there has been no selfish motive. The very spring of our actions is the love of Christ. We look at it like this: if one died for all men then, in a sense, they all died, and his purpose in dying for them is that their lives should now be no longer lived for themselves but for him who died and rose again for them."
5:16-21 - "This means that our knowledge of men can no longer be based on their outward lives (indeed, even though we knew Christ as a man we do not know him like that any longer). For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether - the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new. All this is God's doing, for he has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ; and he has made us agents of the reconciliation. God was in Christ personally reconciling the world to himself - not counting their sins against them - and has commissioned us with the message of reconciliation. We are now Christ's ambassadors, as though God were appealing direct to you through us. As his personal representatives we say, "Make your peace with God." For God caused Christ, who himself knew nothing of sin, actually to be sin for our sakes, so that in Christ we might be made good with the goodness of God."
This is the Love that constrains us into full time service to Jesus. Full time ministry does not have to mean, Preaching, Teaching, or Pastoring, although all of those are High callings and definitely Ministry.
But Ministry simply means Service, and we can serve Jesus full time in our daily life. We can minister to people with a simple smile as we work at McDonalds. We can minister to people just by loving Jesus and letting others see Him in us.
If we love Jesus, His love constrains us to serve Him. Constrains! That means we are simply FORCED to do it. In other words we just can't help it.
5:16-21 - "This means that our knowledge of men can no longer be based on their outward lives (indeed, even though we knew Christ as a man we do not know him like that any longer). For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether - the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new. All this is God's doing, for he has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ; and he has made us agents of the reconciliation. God was in Christ personally reconciling the world to himself - not counting their sins against them - and has commissioned us with the message of reconciliation. We are now Christ's ambassadors, as though God were appealing direct to you through us. As his personal representatives we say, "Make your peace with God." For God caused Christ, who himself knew nothing of sin, actually to be sin for our sakes, so that in Christ we might be made good with the goodness of God."
This is the Love that constrains us into full time service to Jesus. Full time ministry does not have to mean, Preaching, Teaching, or Pastoring, although all of those are High callings and definitely Ministry.
But Ministry simply means Service, and we can serve Jesus full time in our daily life. We can minister to people with a simple smile as we work at McDonalds. We can minister to people just by loving Jesus and letting others see Him in us.
If we love Jesus, His love constrains us to serve Him. Constrains! That means we are simply FORCED to do it. In other words we just can't help it.
